16-year-old girl becomes the youngest to die of coronavirus

A 16-year-old French girl, identified as Julie, with no underlying medical conditions, passed away after she was infected with the novel coronavirus. She was admitted to a hospital in Paris on Wednesday after her symptoms developed with a slight cough over a week ago.

Julie's sister Manon reportedly mentioned that the virus can affect younger people as well as people with no underlying medical conditions. "We must stop believing that this virus only affects the elderly. No one is invincible against this mutant virus. Julie just had a slight cough last week. It got worse last weekend with mucus and on Monday we went to see a GP. It was there that she was diagnosed with respiratory distress. She had no particular illnesses before this," she stated.

"It was violent. We had time to see her, but we quickly had to think about the future. It's unbearable," said Julie's mother, Sabine. "She just had a mild cough that she tried to cure with syrup, herbs, inhalations. On Saturday, Julie began to be short of breath. She was having a hard time catching her breath. Then come the coughing fits," she further described her symptoms. Julie's funeral will reportedly happen on Monday, with a maximum of ten people attending it.

COVID-19 has claimed the lives of more than 27600 people and infected over 607300 people across the world. The virus was first identified in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in China. As the death toll and overall cases began rising rapidly across the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency and the outbreak has now been labelled a pandemic.